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Celebrating the Bicentennial
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20635 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1992 |
1,825 Words |
| Author
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Virginia Greiner
Virginia Greiner writes a weekly gardening column for the
Washington Times. |
The White House celebrates its two hundredth anniversary this month. In the two centuries since its cornerstone was laid October 13, 1792, this handsome mansion has been home to every American president except George Washington. Through wars and civil unrest, in the era of the Gold Rush and the Depression, from covered wagons to space shuttles, it has remained a beloved symbol of permanence. The British burned it, age weakened it, architects and presidents altered it, some critics wanted to demolish it. But the grand old house has only improved with age.
Although the image of the executive mansion is instantly recognized, the President's House, as it was first called, has undergone endless change. The standstone shell is about all that survives of the original building. The interior has been gutted twice for necessary repairs. The enormous stairway has been relocated and the massive pillars in the stately cross hall on the main floor replaced.
Each first family has conceived of the White House differently. Jefferson used the Green Room as a breakfast room and gave normal dinners in the entrance hall. James Monroe brought back many handsome furnishings from Europe, some still is use today. John Adams ordered carvings of fruit and flowers to replace those of nudes originally planned to ornament fireplaces in the State Rooms. FDR had an indoor swimming pool built to case his polio pain. Stained glasswork by Louis Comfort Tiffany, gas chandeliers, horsehair sofas, and silk wall coverings have come and gone. (Sometimes historic elements were simply tossed away. James Hoban's Prussian blue marble columns in the entrance hall were simply dumped into the Potomac Rive during one renovation, as the preeminent historian of the White House, William Seale, notes in his new book for the bicentennial The White House: The History of an American Idea.)
The grounds and gardens, once called the President's Park, have also undergone multiple transformations. Stables have been built and torn down, including one outside the State Dining Room, a bad location considering that air conditioning at the time meant opening the windows. Vegetable gardens have been planted and uprooted; stone walls and fences have been put up and taken down; drives, gates, and fountains have been repositioned. Sixty-six ornate Victorian flowerbeds with over sixty-four thousand bulbs and five thousand plants and shrubs were ripped out of the north lawn. Most presidents have planted commemorative trees, including John Quincy Adam's American elm, which miraculously survived until last year. The bushes have planted four: an ash, a redbud, a purple beech, and a little leaf
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